Shirlington Had Inside Line on DHS Contract?

Justin just called in with another dispatch from today’s hearing on the Department of Homeland Security’s contract with Shirlington Limousine.

Tell me if this sounds fishy to you.

As revealed in today’s hearing, Shirlington President Christopher Baker told committee staff that he’d originally submitted a proposal to DHS in January of 2004 to provide shuttle services.

Here’s why that’s fishy – that was 3 months before DHS even announced that they’d be seeking bids for such a contract.

But it gets better. In March of 2004, Baker applied for HUBZone status for Shirlington – that’s a federal program whereby certain contracts are set aside for small businesses in “distressed areas.”

On April 8, Shirlington was awarded HUBZone status.

And guess what — one week later DHS posted the bid solicitation for their transportation contract. The contract was designated as a HUBZone project.

Two weeks later Shirlington won the contract.

This pricked up some ears on the committee. Why had Baker submitted a proposal before the actual solitication? It looks like the whole thing was set up so that Shirlington could win the contract. And as we noted before, there is ample evidence that Shirlington shouldn’t even have won HUBZone status in the first place.

Elaine Duke, the chief procurement officer for DHS, told the committee that their records do not show that Baker submitted a proposal in January, although she said that officials from DHS did talk wtih Baker around that time.

So one question that’s emerging here is why DHS records and Baker are telling two different stories. Earlier, news came out that DHS had no record of Duke Cunningham’s letter recommending Baker for the contract.